I was back in Scotland and filming was over… or so I thought. It was a dark October day and I was sitting at my desk in my flat in Dundee struggling to read a book on Property Law when I received a phone call – it was Daniel Riser. He was thinking of coming to Scotland the next summer, he said. We had been talking a few minutes when he slipped into the conversation the line that would be the catalyst for what was to come… “yeah, and don’t forget I want to finish that Indy film of ours”.

Wow. There was more? I thought that little thing was over and he wanted to shoot more? I hadn’t even seen what we had already shot that summer yet. Over the next few weeks the idea played on my mind… Scotland was a beautiful country, lots of history, scenic locations… yeah why not film some more. But it was going to take some planning.

Over the next few months Daniel and I had more telephone conversations, exchanged emails and brainstormed ideas. What was going to be the plot of our movie? Who were going to be the characters? What would be the prize being sought after? Well we had to reason it out rationally… since it now looked like the majority of the film was going to be filmed over a longer period (at this stage we envisaged around 2 weeks maybe) in Scotland, the adventure had to reflect this. We tried to think what there was in way of Indiana Jones-esque history in Scotland. Well there were the Celts, but I was reluctant to pursue that since I really didn’t know anything about them and wasn’t sure we could really put together enough to make an interesting story. That pretty much left us with something medieval… King Arthur maybe? That was a possibility… but then I remembered something I had a long time ago… about a medieval order of knights, but surrounded in controversy and myth… the Knights Templar! I mentioned it to Dan but, in that pre-Da Vinci Code era, he had not heard of them. There was only one place to go… the library.

The more I researched the Templars the more it became obvious how perfect they were. Incredibly wealthy, very mysterious, attributed mystical powers and then their order curiously wiped out admits heinous allegations shrouded in conspiracy and subterfuge. We had our plot!

The next step was to find our actors. I quickly discovered the internet to be a useful alley and it wasn’t long before I managed to find and recruit the services of one JOON HA HWANG – a perfect young Wu Han (referencing Temple of Doom, of course). At this stage the only professional and experienced actor involved, the remaining parts had been distributed between friends I knew at university.

Locations was next – I enlisted the services of my to become long suffering friend, SIMON THOMPSON. Scotland was a vast and untamed wilderness of epic proportion and we knew that out there would be the perfect places for us to film. We began our search locally, within Dundee and the surrounding area but it soon became apparent that while we could find places useable, there was nothing here that instantly stood out. That was until, while taking a break from location scouting, we were watching a movie – Monty Python and the Holy Grail. What got us excited was when watching the ‘making of’ documentary following the feature; we discovered the whole thing had been made in Scotland, and on a virtual shoe string budget. Even more exciting was seeing Michael Palin revisiting some of the locations they had used and providing directions on how to get there.

A week later Simon and myself were scouring the Scottish hillsides near Loch Tay… after a few hours of searching we had found our Holy Grail – the Cave of Caernbanog! It was perfect – the stage was set and everything was looking good.

And that was when I received the phone call… Daniel could not come to Scotland after all. The movie had no director. All was lost.